The standard Cable recipe and its real output
Cable is the second step of the copper chain, unlocked so early that most players build it before they think about ratios at all. The cached recipe table:
| Recipe | Machine | Cycle | Inputs (per craft) | Input (per min) | Output |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cable (standard) | Constructor | 2 s | Wire 2 | 60 Wire | 1 Cable, 30/min |
| Coated Cable (alternate) | Refinery | 8 s | Wire 5 | 37.5 Wire | 9 Cable, 67.5/min |
| Insulated Cable (alternate) | Assembler | 12 s | Wire 9 + Rubber 6 | 45 Wire + 30 Rubber | 20 Cable, 100/min |
| Quickwire Cable (alternate) | Assembler | 24 s | Quickwire 3 + Rubber 2 | 7.5 Quickwire + 5 Rubber | 11 Cable, 27.5/min |
“Cable: 2 Wire per craft, 2 s in a Constructor, 1 out, 30 per minute” — the row mirrored from the satisfactory.wiki.gg recipe table into
src/data/satisfactory-recipes.json.
30 Cable per minute per Constructor is the baseline. It is a slow machine for such a basic item, and it consumes 60 Wire per minute to do it — which means the Cable Constructor is a bigger wire consumer than almost anything else you build in the early game.
The key ratio is 2 Wire per Cable. Since one Copper Ingot becomes 2 Wire at the standard wire recipe, that works out to exactly 1 Copper Ingot per Cable. Every cable you produce has a copper ore cost baked into it, and that is what makes the alternates interesting.
Machine counts and the copper bill
| Target cable | Standard Constructors (30/min) | Wire needed | Copper Ingot needed | Smelters (30/min each) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30/min | 1 | 60/min | 30/min | 1 |
| 60/min | 2 | 120/min | 60/min | 2 |
| 120/min | 4 | 240/min | 120/min | 4 |
| 300/min | 10 | 600/min | 300/min | 10 |
| 600/min | 20 | 1,200/min | 600/min | 20 |
That last row is why players start hunting Cable alternates. Six hundred cable per minute on the standard recipe is twenty Constructors and twenty smelters of copper before you have made a single board. The alternates break that ratio in half or better.
Note also the machine split: each Cable Constructor needs two Wire Constructors behind it, since one wire Constructor makes 30/min and the cable machine eats 60/min. The classic early mistake is one wire machine feeding one cable machine and wondering why output halves.
Coated Cable: the free upgrade
Coated Cable runs in a Refinery and turns 5 Wire into 9 Cable every 8 seconds — 37.5 Wire per minute becoming 67.5 Cable per minute.
Two things change at once. Output per machine more than doubles (67.5 against 30), and wire per cable collapses from 2.0 to 0.56. That is roughly 72% less wire per cable, and because wire is copper, roughly 72% less copper ore for the same output.
| Metric | Standard | Coated | Insulated | Quickwire |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cable per machine per min | 30 | 67.5 | 100 | 27.5 |
| Wire per cable | 2.0 | 0.56 | 0.45 | — |
| Rubber per cable | 0 | 0 | 0.30 | 0.18 |
| Machines for 120 cable/min | 4 | 2 | 2 | 5 |
The catch is that Coated Cable needs a Refinery, which means oil processing. It is a Tier 5 unlock, so it does nothing for your first computer line — but the moment your oil base exists, swapping cable production to Coated Cable frees up a large amount of copper.
Insulated Cable: cheapest wire, most machines
Insulated Cable is the wire-efficient champion: 9 Wire plus 6 Rubber becomes 20 Cable in 12 seconds. That is 0.45 Wire and 0.30 Rubber per cable at 100 cable per minute per Assembler.
In copper terms this is the cheapest cable in the game. In oil terms it is not free: 120 cable per minute costs 36 Rubber per minute, which is nearly two default rubber refineries. The recipe only pays off when you already have rubber in quantity — typically once the oil block is built for plastic and rubber together.
The real win is machine count. Two Assemblers make 200 cable per minute; on the standard recipe that same output is seven Constructors. On a big electronics base, that is dozens of buildings and their power draw removed.
Quickwire Cable: the caterium route
Quickwire Cable is the odd one out. It runs 24 seconds and converts just 3 Quickwire plus 2 Rubber into 11 Cable — 27.5 per minute, the slowest of the four, and 0.27 Quickwire plus 0.18 Rubber per cable.
It never wins on throughput. It wins on logistics: Quickwire is made from Caterium Ingot at 5 wire per ingot, so a cable line built on Quickwire Cable stops needing copper entirely. On a map where copper is committed to sheets for circuit boards, this recipe lets cable production move to the caterium outpost. Use it for remote builds where you are shipping caterium anyway.
What eats the cable
Cable looks like a building material, but its real consumers are electronics and equipment. From the cached consumption table:
| Consumer | Cable per min | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Automated Wiring (alternate) | 50 | heaviest single draw |
| High-Speed Connector | 37.5 | connector chain |
| Nobelisk Detonator | 37.5 | equipment |
| Computer (standard) | 20 | 8 per craft, 2.5/min |
| Xeno-Zapper | 22.5 | equipment |
| Parachute | 15 | equipment |
| Crystal Oscillator | 14 | 120 s Manufacturer cycle |
| Chainsaw | 15 | equipment |
The Computer draw is the one to plan around. Twenty cable per minute per Manufacturer means two Manufacturers need 40/min — more than one standard Constructor’s full output. See the Computer chain for how that fits into the wider electronics block.
The High-Speed Connector draw is heavier still at 37.5 cable per minute, and a Crystal Oscillator Manufacturer takes 14 per minute. Once you are running computers, connectors and oscillators together, cable demand passes 100 per minute and the standard recipe stops being viable — four Constructors and 240 wire per minute for a single electronics block.
Practical build notes
- One wire Constructor per 30 cable per minute, doubled. The cable machine eats 60 wire per minute, so it needs two wire machines. Belt them together before the cable Constructor, not after.
- Buffer cable at the electronics block, not at the machine. Cable is consumed in 8-cable gulps every 24 seconds by a Computer Manufacturer; a small storage container smooths that.
- Sink overflow at 24 points? No. Cable is worth only 24 points at the AWESOME Sink, so if you have excess cable the honest answer is that you over-built the line. Cut a Constructor instead of sinking it.
- Manifold, do not daisy-chain. A line of five cable Constructors fed by one belt works if the belt carries 150 wire per minute; a chain that feeds machine 5 from machine 4’s output will starve the tail. See splitters and mergers.
For the upstream half of the chain, the wire guide covers the copper ingot to wire step, and the production ratio walkthrough scales these numbers to any target.